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Over a million urban dwellers in several developing countries are accessing water services as a result of research undertaken at Loughborough University. National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), Uganda's main urban water utility, applied the research findings to improve service quality, and extend piped water supply to the previously un-served. During 2008-2011, over 500,000 additional urban residents accessed piped water supply of improved bacteriological and physico-chemical quality — resulting in significant enhancement of health and quality of life (particularly of children). Furthermore, the research benefits were transferred to other countries, through the work of NWSC's External Services Department, extending the reach to other countries including Kenya, Tanzania, India and Zambia.
New characterisation tools for natural organic matter (NOM) in drinking water are now used as standard practice within water companies such as Severn Trent Water, United Utilities and Yorkshire Water. The tools inform decisions, and help develop strategic plans on catchment management, source selection, treatment optimisation, and disinfection practice. Water companies experienced difficulties in treating high levels of NOM. Cranfield created a novel characterisation toolkit to measure NOM for its electrical charge and hydrophobicity. Also, new techniques for measuring aggregate properties and emerging disinfection by-products have provided a comprehensive analysis. Two novel treatment technologies are currently marketed. These technologies have raised international interest, resulting in industrial development in Australia.
This case study describes a series of research projects undertaken by Professor Hulya Dagdeviren from 2004 to 2012 on issues related to the commercialisation and privatisation of water and sanitation services, which involved changes in the control and management of former public utilities. In particular, it focuses on the findings and impacts of the studies in relation to the access and affordability of these services for poor households in the developing countries. The results of these studies influenced the policy directions of international institutions, especially the UN agencies, which play an important role in funding projects and policy advocacy that ultimately shape the national policies of the developing countries.
Research, undertaken at the University of Sheffield since 2001, into the discolouration of drinking water occurring within distribution systems has had economic, policy and professional practice impacts on the water supply sector since 2008. This has resulted in improved levels of service, has safeguarded water quality delivered to the public and has delivered substantial economic savings. For example, in one of the few cases where monetary value is available, Wessex Water made 63% savings on two trunk main schemes with an initial estimated cost in excess of £1M. The 4 and 7 km lengths of these trunk mains represent less than 1% of the trunk mains being impacted by our research. Our research has resulted in a step change in the concept and approach to the management of discolouration in water distribution systems.
Research at Cranfield has underpinned national policies for managing and allocating the UK's agricultural water resources over the past 20 years. It has supported major reforms in water policy, abstraction legislation and drought management. It has done this by modelling spatial and temporal variations in demand for irrigation, linking this to the financial impacts of water stress on crop yield and quality, projecting future demand, and assessing climate change impacts and potential adaptations. It has also significantly impacted the agri-food sector, helping agribusinesses assess the viability of irrigation and reservoir investment, encouraging collaboration, and reducing risks in the food supply chain.
Efficient city-wide water distribution systems (WDS) are vital to the health and financial wellbeing of the cities' inhabitants. The impact of research on evolutionary algorithms and heuristics at Exeter has been to provide efficient water distribution system designs on a city-wide basis for a large city, the City of Ottawa. As part of a programme of building and upgrading infrastructure costing in excess of $225M CAD, the City has implemented large-scale capital projects based on designs produced by genetic algorithm technology, made possible by utilising the heuristics and modular optimisation developed by Keedwell and colleagues at the University of Exeter.
The impact of research by the University of Southampton into global access to safe drinking water has: (i) provided important evidence for new policy initiatives by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF to promote home water treatment to reduce the 1.9 million deaths each year due to water- related infections, and (ii) stimulated debate among a range of stakeholders, including the media, advocacy groups and UN bodies, by challenging the accuracy of the assertion by the UN Secretary General that the UN Millennium Development Goal for safe water access has been met.
The impact is a change in the behaviour of water companies in investment planning processes to meet with 5-yearly Periodic Reviews with the industry regulator (Ofwat), and on the requirements by Ofwat for water companies to adopt a cost-benefit approach that takes account of water customer preferences. It is based on findings from a research programme concerned with economic approaches to utility regulation theories and practice. Policies, processes and practices of water companies and Ofwat, at a national level, have been affected, with respect to the 2009 and 2014 Periodic Reviews. The impacts are primarily economic, commercial and organizational, and environmental. The beneficiaries are water companies, their regulators, and customers.
By modelling the formation of micro-bubbles and the flows induced by them, researchers at the University of Cambridge Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics developed a new, low-cost nozzle design that could be retrofitted to existing Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) systems. This new design dramatically improved the performance of DAF systems, used by the water industry for the production of drinking water. Specifically, this research has enabled a substantial increase in throughput and effectiveness of the flotation process, whilst simultaneously providing a dramatic decrease in the energy requirement.
This study analysed the shallow well drinking water quality of 17,000 rural Malawians. Water officials were advised interim precautions to take regarding grossly contaminated wells. Inter alia, the `Water Resources Investment Strategy', World Bank funded, captured this data to help develop policy. A new MSc course was established to educate water officials. Workshops/Fieldtrips integrated this research into the undergraduate curriculum. An indigenous sustainable natural water purification system was developed to reduce contaminates at source. Initial data indicates that water quality can be improved by up to 80%. This has the potential to improve the water quality for 1.5 million Malawians.